Menendez wants Russia punished with harsher sanctions

By HERB JACKSON

Washington Correspondent |

The Record

The United States needs to persuade its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on whole sectors of Russia’s economy and provide or finance defensive weapons to repel what is clearly an invasion of Ukraine, Sen. Bob Menendez said in an interview from Kiev on Sunday.

Without tough action, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world powers will become even more aggressive, said Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I think Putin has sized up the West and concluded they’ll stamp their feet and say countries don’t do this in the 21st century, but they won’t give the Ukrainians the arms they need, they won’t impose the strongest sanctions against Russia,” Menendez said. “We have to prove to Putin that he’s wrong.”

The tough comments from the New Jersey Democrat come a year after he led the Senate effort to authorize military strikes on Syria’s government for using chemical weapons, and it continues a pattern of pressing President Obama’s administration to be more aggressive internationally.

Menendez, of Paramus, said he was not criticizing Obama, just advocating a strong position. He laid out his views in a letter to Obama on Saturday that called for using the coming NATO summit in Wales to get strong action that can then be expanded to the broader European community.

“I think the administration is trying,” he said. “To the extent there have been sanctions so far, it’s because the administration has led on it and gotten the Europeans to follow. I think for the president, this is a moment for real global leadership.”

Some European countries are “overly dependent” on Russian natural gas for energy and have been too cautious so far because of fears that tougher sanctions would worsen economies already in recession, Menendez said.

Putin, who has said Russian Ukrainians are defending themselves from their government, told a Russian network Sunday that Ukraine should begin talks “about the question of the political organization of society and statehood in southeast Ukraine, with the goal of safeguarding the legitimate interests of those people who live there.”

His spokesman said later that despite using the word “statehood,” he did not mean sovereignty for separatist areas.

Ukrainian President Petro Poro­shenko released a peace plan in June that proposed an unspecified level of decentralization of executive powers and budgetary matters. But rebels so far have rejected any talks unless Ukrainian forces halt their offensive.

At a meeting in Brussels that ended on Saturday, the 28-member European Union criticized Russian action but stopped short of imposing new sanctions, telling its executive body instead to begin drafting measures that could be imposed later. Because Europe is a bigger trading partner with Russia, sanctions imposed by the United States alone would not have as much effect.

Menendez believes earlier sanctions that targeted individuals and specific companies should be expanded to include whole Russian energy, defense and banking sectors. European leaders, he said, must decide whether to put a higher priority on economic or security interests.

“From my perspective, Russia is fighting a war against Europe on Ukrainian territory,” Menendez said. “And Ukraine is fighting a war of independence to choose its future freely without Russian domination. But this is all about the Russians not caring for the European Union, its standards and its values and not wanting Ukraine to enter into that orbit.

As he said in the letter Saturday to Obama, Menendez argued that not acting could be more dangerous than showing strength.

“If Putin doesn’t pay dearly for this naked aggression, it can spread to the Baltic countries, with large Russian-speaking populations,” Menendez said. “And it will send a global message that such aggression or desires by others — whether China in the South China Sea, Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons, North Korea, and a whole host of other actors — that there’s not real consequence for their actions. That is not something that we can afford.”

Menendez also said “it confounds me” that what is happening in Ukraine is being described as an incursion or fighting between Ukrainian loyalist and separatist groups instead of an invasion by Russia.

“You have thousands of Russian troops, you have tanks, you have columns of tanks and armored vehicles, and missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and other sophisticated weaponry all coming across the border into the Ukraine,” he said. “I mean, when is an invasion not an invasion?”

Putin said last week that Russian troops captured in Ukraine were there by accident. His government has also said that some fighters were volunteering to join Russian-speaking Ukrainian separatists.

But members of Congress who support tougher action ridiculed those explanations.

“Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine can only be called one thing: a cross-border military invasion,” Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a joint statement Thursday. “To claim it’s anything other than that is to inhabit President Putin’s Orwellian universe.”

Menendez said that before his current trip, which included stops to meet leaders in Poland and Estonia, he was already supportive of giving Ukraine better defensive weapons. Examples he cited on Sunday included antitank weapons and radars that can identify where enemy fire originates.

“We give night vision goggles now,” Menendez said. “It’s great to see the enemy, but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t shoot them.”

Menendez wants Russia punished with harsher sanctions

By HERB JACKSON

Washington Correspondent |

The Record

The United States needs to persuade its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on whole sectors of Russia’s economy and provide or finance defensive weapons to repel what is clearly an invasion of Ukraine, Sen. Bob Menendez said in an interview from Kiev on Sunday.

Without tough action, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world powers will become even more aggressive, said Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“I think Putin has sized up the West and concluded they’ll stamp their feet and say countries don’t do this in the 21st century, but they won’t give the Ukrainians the arms they need, they won’t impose the strongest sanctions against Russia,” Menendez said. “We have to prove to Putin that he’s wrong.”

The tough comments from the New Jersey Democrat come a year after he led the Senate effort to authorize military strikes on Syria’s government for using chemical weapons, and it continues a pattern of pressing President Obama’s administration to be more aggressive internationally.

Menendez, of Paramus, said he was not criticizing Obama, just advocating a strong position. He laid out his views in a letter to Obama on Saturday that called for using the coming NATO summit in Wales to get strong action that can then be expanded to the broader European community.

“I think the administration is trying,” he said. “To the extent there have been sanctions so far, it’s because the administration has led on it and gotten the Europeans to follow. I think for the president, this is a moment for real global leadership.”

Some European countries are “overly dependent” on Russian natural gas for energy and have been too cautious so far because of fears that tougher sanctions would worsen economies already in recession, Menendez said.

Putin, who has said Russian Ukrainians are defending themselves from their government, told a Russian network Sunday that Ukraine should begin talks “about the question of the political organization of society and statehood in southeast Ukraine, with the goal of safeguarding the legitimate interests of those people who live there.”

His spokesman said later that despite using the word “statehood,” he did not mean sovereignty for separatist areas.

Ukrainian President Petro Poro­shenko released a peace plan in June that proposed an unspecified level of decentralization of executive powers and budgetary matters. But rebels so far have rejected any talks unless Ukrainian forces halt their offensive.

At a meeting in Brussels that ended on Saturday, the 28-member European Union criticized Russian action but stopped short of imposing new sanctions, telling its executive body instead to begin drafting measures that could be imposed later. Because Europe is a bigger trading partner with Russia, sanctions imposed by the United States alone would not have as much effect.

Menendez believes earlier sanctions that targeted individuals and specific companies should be expanded to include whole Russian energy, defense and banking sectors. European leaders, he said, must decide whether to put a higher priority on economic or security interests.

“From my perspective, Russia is fighting a war against Europe on Ukrainian territory,” Menendez said. “And Ukraine is fighting a war of independence to choose its future freely without Russian domination. But this is all about the Russians not caring for the European Union, its standards and its values and not wanting Ukraine to enter into that orbit.

As he said in the letter Saturday to Obama, Menendez argued that not acting could be more dangerous than showing strength.

“If Putin doesn’t pay dearly for this naked aggression, it can spread to the Baltic countries, with large Russian-speaking populations,” Menendez said. “And it will send a global message that such aggression or desires by others — whether China in the South China Sea, Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons, North Korea, and a whole host of other actors — that there’s not real consequence for their actions. That is not something that we can afford.”

Menendez also said “it confounds me” that what is happening in Ukraine is being described as an incursion or fighting between Ukrainian loyalist and separatist groups instead of an invasion by Russia.

“You have thousands of Russian troops, you have tanks, you have columns of tanks and armored vehicles, and missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and other sophisticated weaponry all coming across the border into the Ukraine,” he said. “I mean, when is an invasion not an invasion?”

Putin said last week that Russian troops captured in Ukraine were there by accident. His government has also said that some fighters were volunteering to join Russian-speaking Ukrainian separatists.

But members of Congress who support tougher action ridiculed those explanations.

“Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine can only be called one thing: a cross-border military invasion,” Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a joint statement Thursday. “To claim it’s anything other than that is to inhabit President Putin’s Orwellian universe.”

Menendez said that before his current trip, which included stops to meet leaders in Poland and Estonia, he was already supportive of giving Ukraine better defensive weapons. Examples he cited on Sunday included antitank weapons and radars that can identify where enemy fire originates.

“We give night vision goggles now,” Menendez said. “It’s great to see the enemy, but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t shoot them.”